Website Templates: The Ultimate Guide to Website Design in WordPress Premium
The demand for website templates has hit an all-time high, as businesses worldwide realize the power of a well-designed website. But with so many website template providers out there, how can you ensure you’re choosing the right one for your needs? Let’s explore.
The Basics
Before diving into the details, let’s discuss the most fundamental elements of a quality website design. To begin, use a CMS. Keeping everything organized and on-hand is a chore when working with developers. Having a content management system (CMS) such as WordPress makes keeping track of the tiny details much easier. Also, using a CMS allows for greater flexibility, as you can swap out components such as the homepage, pricing table, and call-to-action buttons without needing to rewrite the entire website template.
Pick A Theme
The next thing to consider is the theme you’ll use for the site. Just like with a house rental, you want to ensure that the bedsheets and towels are of high quality, as well as the wallpapers and lighting. A bad experience with a theme can break your heart a little bit, so it’s essential to take your time choosing the right one. When shopping for a new theme, make sure to check out the support, as well as reviews from previous customers. After all, they might be able to give you some insight into whether or not this theme is right for your needs.
Choose A Framework
Along with a CMS, using a WordPress framework makes keeping track of the technical details a lot less complicated. WordPress is a popular choice for CMS-based websites, and it offers a lot of flexibility when creating a professional-looking blog or a sophisticated e-commerce store. There are dozens of WordPress frameworks and plug-ins available, all with their perks. You don’t need to be limited by the design of the theme you choose. With a little bit of research and knowledge, you can achieve any result you desire.
Design Considerations
Now that you have the basics taken care of, let’s discuss some important matters that you need to keep in mind when designing a website. The first is the colors you’ll use. Before making any decisions, take into consideration the vibe you’re going for. If you’re aiming for an elegant look, soft colors like cream, white, pale blue, and pale green are perfect. If you’d like a more unique look, warmer colors like red, orange, and yellow are the way to go. To keep everything cohesive, don’t use too many colors or patterns across the site. Another thing to keep in mind is the fonts you’ll use. If you’re designing a website for a business, you might not want to use the default fonts used by WordPress. Instead, consider one of the many popular premium fonts offered by a typefoundry. These fonts look incredible and are guaranteed to improve the overall feel and appearance of your website.
Content Is Key
The content of your website is just as important as its design. After all, people come back time and time again to read a well-crafted blog post or view a high-quality product showcase. Having good content on your website will attract potential customers, encourage them to subscribe to your mailing list, and even increase your conversion rates.
To ensure that your content is well-written and attractive to the eye, hire a professional copywriter or find a talented freelancer to take care of all your content needs. At the very least, take a course at a local college or university to learn how to write a compelling digital marketing piece for your website. When it comes to content, less is more. People hate browsing through massive amounts of text, especially when they are already struggling to find the information they need. Always consider your readership first and make sure that each piece of content is worthwhile.
Mobile First
Although most people use desktops these days to browse the web, mobile users constitute a large chunk of the population. To ensure that your website looks the same no matter what device is being used, design it first for mobile users. This means making the most out of the small screen size and ensuring that everything fits comfortably on a touchscreen device. To achieve this, start by testing your website on different mobile devices to see how it looks. Once you have everything setup correctly on your desktops, move on to testing it on your mobile phone. The last thing you want is to find out that your site doesn’t look the same on a small phone screen as it does on a large one.
Avoid Too Much Flair
The key to a successful website design is to keep things simple yet elegant. Trying to be too creative with your design can actually backfire, as it can make your website look messy and less professional. Instead of going for a flashy, cartoonish look, keep things simple yet elegant. If you want to add a little more flavor to your design, there are many sleek, trendy design apps and websites out there that you can use.
Testing
Once you have your design ready, it’s time to test it. Not only will A/B testing different parts of your site determine which ones work and which ones don’t, but you’ll also find out how users respond to different aspects of your design. During testing, you’ll discover things such as which header is more appealing, how the pricing table appears, and which call-to-action button is more effective.
To ensure that you test everything properly, create different versions of your website. One version can be completely white, while the other has a green and orange color scheme. Conduct A/B testing on each of these variations to determine the best one for your needs. Don’t worry too much about which colors are the most popular; instead, choose what you feel is the most appealing option for your site.
Implementing
After you’ve tested different versions of your site with A/B testing, it’s time to implement the winning design. To do this, you’ll need to make a few minor adjustments to your WordPress theme. These changes will be quite basic and easy to implement, as you’ll be following a strictly step-by-step process. First, you’ll need to create a CSS-styled navigation bar at the top of your page. This navigation bar will contain all your links and will be styled with CSS. Next, you’ll want to modify the look of your pricing tables by changing the font and color scheme used in the pricing tables. To finish the process, you’ll need to style the email sign-up form used on your site. This is quite simple too as you’ll be following the exact same steps as above to style the navigation bar and the pricing table. At this point, it’s just a matter of following these steps and implementing what you learned.
More Things To Consider
As mentioned above, the design of your website should be simple yet elegant, using a minimal amount of text and well-designed images. To add a little more flair to your design, consider using one of the many free and premium stock image websites out there. These websites allow you to search for and download royalty-free images that you can use in your website. Not only will using stock images add a small amount of creativity to your design, but it will also make your site look more professional.
The most important thing to keep in mind when designing your website is that content is key. People come back time and time again to read a well-crafted blog post or view a high-quality product showcase. To ensure that your content is well-written and attractive to the eye, hire a professional copywriter or find a talented freelancer to take care of all your content needs. At the very least, take a course at a local college or university to learn how to write a compelling digital marketing piece for your website.